Richard Alexander Allen
| Richard Allen | |
|---|---|
| Ontario MPP | |
|
In office 1982–1995 |
|
| Preceded by | Stuart Lyon Smith |
| Succeeded by | Lillian Ross |
| Constituency | Hamilton West |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 10, 1929 Vancouver, British Columbia |
| Political party | New Democrat |
| Spouse(s) | Nettie Shewchuk |
| Children | 2 |
| Residence | Dundas, Ontario |
| Occupation | Historian |
Richard Alexander Allen (born February 10, 1929) is an historian and former politician in Ontario, Canada. He sat as a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1982 to 1995, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae.
Allen was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto, a Master's Degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. from Duke University. He was a professor at the University of Regina from 1964 to 1974 where he initiated interdisciplinary prairie studies and founded the Canadian Plans Research Centre. He taught at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario as senior Canadian historian from 1974 to 1987. He and his wife Nettie have two children.
Allen's career began with history and he specialized in Christian socialism within Canada. In 1971, he published a work entitled The Social Passion, chronicling the history of the Canadian social gospel from the 1890s to 1929. In the book he proposed that the social gospel supplied the reform movement with a type of ideology. He said it ultimately failed because the concept translated poorly between English and Canadian society and that the structure of the churches did not lend itself to promoting social change. The book was criticized because it focused too strongly on central Canada and ignored trends in the Maritimes and Western Canada.
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